To mark the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, the Guardian has launched an interactive documentary - First World War: the story of a global conflict - which explores the global impact of the conflict through an immersive approach to digital storytelling. The project has been produced with the support of Imperial War Museums, who provided archival support and consultancy.
Fully translated into seven languages, including Arabic and Hindi, the documentary examines the whole picture of the war, from outbreak to aftermath, with analysis and journalism powered by digital and interactive tools.
The backbone of the project is a 32 minute video documentary, told by ten historians from around the world, including Sir Hew Strachan, Dr. Santanu Das and Dr. Siegfried Weichlein, who bring together their combined knowledge to cover the war from outbreak to conclusion - from every angle.
Broken into seven chapters, the narrative is interwoven with content from the Imperial War Museums, Getty, Pathé and the Guardian archives. A variety of archived letters, poems, recordings and newspaper articles from across the world, ranging from Germany to India, add colour, context and shade to a complex story which is all too often told from a single country's perspective.
For those who want to dig deeper into the story, there are interactives accompanying each chapter, created by project partner Kiln, enriching the experience with interactive maps, data profiles, and close examinations of key factors, trends, and events in the conflict.
Francesca Panetta, multimedia special projects editor for the Guardian and director of the documentary, said: "The story of the First World War is often given through the eyes of a single country. The Guardian is a global media company and the war a global story. Our aim was therefore to show the whole picture, both editorially and technically. As far as I know, we've never done such an ambitious project in so many languages. I hope this will be a resource people can use for years."
Contributing historian Dr Santanu Das, Reader in English Literature, King's College London, said: "Ambitious, imaginative and truly international in scope, this is an immensely attractive and valuable resource. Weaving together images, film-clips, documents, maps, sound-effects, and voices of historians from ten different countries, it shows how modern technology can help to immerse us in the complex, multiple and parallel histories of the First World War, as we move across empires, nations and fronts."
In line with the Guardian's commitment to open journalism, users will also have the opportunity to help translate the documentary into more languages through a crowdsourcing project. Details are available here.
